Studies with zebrafish, which share features of their immune system with people, found the treatment helped to improve the recovery of tissues after injury.

The team hopes their approach could lead to more effective therapies, with fewer side effects, for the treatment of immune-related diseases.

Dr. Marc Vendrell, of the Medical Research Council Centre for Inflammation Research at the University of Edinburgh, who led the study, said: "This is an important step forward in the design of more precise drugs with fewer side effects. In future studies, we want to exploit this technology to improve the treatment of diseases in which macrophages and immune cells are important."